The pain may not be over yet for bitcoin and its brethren, with one analyst predicting a final capitulation dumping prices as low as $12,500.
Bitcoin is teetering on the psychological $20,000 price level at the time of writing, having dropped another 1.3% on the day. It has remained in this range-bound channel for the past 10 days or so, but could be heading south fast, according to one analyst.
Technical strategist at Fundstrat, Mark Newton, said that there is a good chance of a final capitulation event before the market bottoms.
“Most short-term technicals point to an above-average chance of a final ‘washout’-style decline before this bottoms,”
Bitcoin has room to drop as low as $12,500 to $13,000, “which I expect should be an excellent place for intermediate-term buyers to add to longs,” he wrote according to Bloomberg.
Previous bitcoin cycle capitulations
A slump to those prices would be an 82% correction from its all-time high. Bitcoin is currently down 71% from its peak, so using this as a guide could reinforce the premise.
In the previous market cycle, BTC prices hit a high of $20,000 in Dec 2017 before crashing down to $3,200 in Dec of the following year. This retreat was a similar 82% so if history rhymes then it could plausibly happen again. There was also a final capitulation event in Nov 2018 dumping a further 50% from BTC prices.
The cycle before that saw BTC prices dump a similar 84% in the 2015 bear market that followed its 2014 peak.
Bitcoin prices hit a low of $17,760 on June 19 before recovering to top $21,600, however, the bears are still in full control of markets. Continued selling pressure from miners could add to the downsides.
Senior market analyst at Oanda, Craig Erlam, commented that there has been some recent relief given the stream of negative headlines over the last couple of months, before adding “I fear more may follow in the weeks ahead, and I wonder whether the community does too, given its inability to get any traction above $20,000.”
Stacking sats
On-chain analytics provider Glassnode has observed that there is still some accumulation occurring, especially in the small holder group.
It noted that small Bitcoin holders with less than one coin, which it calls “shrimps” have been adding to their balance at the most aggressive rate since March 2020. Furthermore, the whales with more than a thousand coins are also adding to their balance aggressively, acquiring 140,000 BTC per month directly from exchanges. Whales now own 8.69 million BTC, or 45.6% supply, and the Shrimps hold 1.12 million coins.
Bitcoin is now trading below several historical price models, as reported by Be[In]Crypto this week.
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